5PROFILE

theaustralian.com.au/review June 3-4, 2017V1 - AUSE01Z01AR

days people are too busy on their phones andcomputers to look at the mountain, to lookaround them. I’m really interested in archeolo-gy and ancient ornaments” — don’t ask himwhy, he offers with a smile — “and there wasthis moment when I came across a 4000-year-old ceramic bowl from the Ararat Valley withimpressions of the birds, trees and flowers thepotter saw as he made it. I realised there is an artto observing.”

While the album’s title track is all spacey vo-cals and ancient-to-future grooves, the songEgyptian Poet, with its changing vocal registersand swerving musical tempos, was inspired by a4000-year-old book of poetry from Egypt. “Iwas fascinated by this book because it related somuch to what is going on in the world now; backthen it was all about love and power and hurtfeelings too.” Crafted on a raw, ethereal sound-scape, Leninagone is a multi-layered, Russian-doll of a track that takes its melodic cue fromlate-19th-century Armenian piano music as ittells of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, ahistorical event that had a profound impact onArmenia, a former component of the USSR.

Ambitious, much? Another smile. “Thismusic has a hint of the Russian Revolution[which kickstarted the Soviet Union], and fromthe way it’s arranged it is very much about Ar-menian folk influences as well as Caucasian me-lodies and Soviet classical music; creating ahybrid was part of Soviet ideology. Finallyyou hear the collapse of the Soviet Union [in1991], which was apocalyptic times for mostcountries around there.” A pause. “But es-pecially Armenia.”

Hamasyan was 18 months old when, in De-cember 1988, a devastating earthquake hitnorthern Armenia, killing 25,000 people andleaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Thebaby Tigran was with his parents, a jeweller anda clothing designer, in Gyumri, 120km fromYerevan and one of the oldest cities in theworld, in an apartment building that crackedbut mercifully didn’t collapse. The next yearArmenia went to war with neighbouring Azer-baijan, resulting in a blockade. There were elec-tricity blackouts and early morning queues forpoor-quality bread. “My father ended up with astomach ulcer,” he says.

Tigran’s mother encouraged him to play thefamily piano since it was something he could doby candlelight. “They were terrible times,” hesays. “I remember my [younger] sister cryingwhen the electricity came on, because it was sounusual. But we had some cool moments too.”

His earliest musical memory, captured onhome movie footage, is listening to Black Sab-bath’s Paranoid and wigging out on a toy guitar,aged three. “My father loved all the classic En-glish rock bands: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin,Deep Purple,” he says; we break off to nerd outon the fact that Smoke on the Water was writtenabout the Montreux side of Lake Geneva. “Butit was his brother, my Uncle Armen, who reallygot me into jazz. When I was about four hewould come around and pretend that we weregoing for a drive to shoot some helicopters; we’dgo zooming around rural Armenia listening to

would say it is all about balancing body, mindand spirit,” he adds, name-checking the contro-versial 20th-century Russian mystic whosehauntingly beautiful track The Spinners featureson Hamasyan’s 2011 album, The Fable.

Hamasyan was 11 when his uncle took him toa music teacher who had studied in New Yorkunder Bob Harris, one of the great bebop pian-ists of the 50s and 60s. For a year he immersedhimself in improvising with form, laying thefoundations for a glittering career that has in-cluded recordings with the Yerevan StateChamber Choir (2015’s Luys i Luso, or Light ofLight, on the ECM label) and collaborationswith the likes of Indian percussionist TrilokGurtu, Tunisian oud player Dhafer Youssef,dubstep collective LV and fellow American-Armenian Serj Tankian from prog-metal outfitSystem of a Down.

His first big public outing, at 2000’s fledglingYerevan International Jazz Festival, drew astanding ovation. After relocating to Los Ang-eles with his parents, who hoped to give theirtwo children better artistic chances (“There areprobably more Armenians there than in Arme-nia, though I’ve heard Australia comes close,”he quips), he went on to win a number of com-petitions including one at the 2003 MontreuxJazz Festival and another at the TheloniousMonk Institute in Washington. He met musi-cians such as saxophonist Ben Wendel anddrummer and multi-instrumentalist NateWood, a pivotal figure in the thriving Los Ang-eles spiritual jazz scene (which has largelymoved to New York), who he continues to workwith. Increasingly, reviews were peppered withthe word “genius”.

Hamasyan lived briefly in New York, then in

Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Han-cock, him tapping the dashboard, me with myeyes on the sky.”

Enamoured of Hancock and the Headhunt-ers’ funk-jazz classic Chameleon, he transcribedthe entire song, from the solos to every singleguitar part, while still a child. He got into heavymetal; he still loves Swedish icons Meshuggah(“Their rhythms are insane”) as much as hedoes Beethoven and Bud Powell. Enrolled atclassical music school, he struggled through for-mal lessons while guest singing in a big band —a huge-voiced nine-year-old doing jazz stan-dards, mainly, along with the Beatles’ Oh! Dar-ling — and improvising on the keys.Improvisation, you sense, is Hamasyan’s oxy-gen. It’s what gives his work its force and depthand is where, he says, everything starts.

To watch him play — at Carnegie Hall inNew York, say, or as the opening act of the Lon-don Jazz Festival — is to watch a maestrotapped into another dimension, directed by anenergy that feels almost otherworldly. Eyesclosed, hunched so low over the piano that hisnose almost touches the ivories, he seems to dis-appear into music that swerves from delicateimpressions of Eastern orthodox hymns tobursts of electronica and hip hop; from dreamymeditations that see him vocalising in the styleof Keith Jarrett or Glenn Gould to all-stops-outjazz rock.

“I’ve always improvised, even before I knewwhat jazz was,” says Hamasyan, who usessnatches of modal Armenian folk melodieswhere other jazzers might use bebop. “To me,improvising is a special mindset; it is somethingyou either have or you don’t. When you go onstage, for example, you have to be in a state ofnot thinking too much. If you’re too tense oremotional it goes into your arms. Gurdjieff Continued on Page 6

TIGRAN, YOU ARE MY TEACHER NOW!

HERBIE HANCOCK

Hamasyan performing with theYerevan State Chamber Choir;

Herbie Hancock, below

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